CEO of Apple Inc., Time Cook stated that the company’s China platform catered to at least 1.8 million users. He added that the platform had brought in at least $16. 93 billion in profits.

The statement made on Sunday was part of a speech given by Cook at one of China’s top public cyber policy forums.

The forum, organized by the Cybersecurity Administration of China (CAC), oversees the regulation of all internet related activities, including censorship. Cook’s attendance at the event has been highly noticed since he is the first high-level executive to attend the event.

In the early half of this year, the company estimated that developers earned close to $70 million in total revenue from its App store. However, on further review it found that the number was far greater than that.

Apple’s elevated numbers have come as a bit of a surprise to a number of analysts. Apple has faced a great deal of criticism in recent times from local users and rights groups.

These believe that the company has bowed to the pressure exerted by Beijing’s cyber regulators which instructed the company to withdraw a number of apps from its Chinese App store earlier this year.

The apps the government was aiming at included messaging apps and virtual private network services (VPN), both of which help users combat China’s strict internet restrictions.

Although Apple counts China as its third-largest region by sales however, it has lost market shares in recent years as local brands have started encroaching on its high-end phone territory. However, Apple is hoping to gather steam in the market on the backs of its recently released iPhone 8 and iPhone X models.

Patricia Kellogg is a journalist who has held many editorial roles at numerous high-profile publishers – both offline as well as online. She has an experience of more than 10 years in editing and proofreading articles across a range of sectors. She is also well versed with handling academic journal articles, theses, technical manuals, press releases, reports, feature articles, web site content, promotional material, policy papers, and grant proposals.